The word semantics (noun) and semantic (adjective) are derived from Greek word sēmantikos (which means significant).
literaryenglish.com
From the link.
The Word semantics (noun) and semantic (adjective) are derived from Greek word sēmantikos (which means significant).
Word studies and semantics are vital to scripture study, as you cannot understand what was written without understanding what the word meant to the one who used it.
Gentile (
/ˈdʒɛnˌtaɪl/) is a word that usually means "someone who is not a
Jew".
[1] Other
groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably
Mormons, sometimes use the term
gentile to describe outsiders.
[2][3] More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym for
heathen or
pagan.
[3] In some translations of the
Quran,
gentile is used to translate an Arabic word that refers to non-Jews and/or people not versed in or not able to read scripture.
[4]
The English word
gentile derives from the
Latin word
gentilis, meaning "of or belonging to the same people or nation" (from
Latin gēns 'clan, tribe, people, family'). Archaic and specialist uses of the word
gentile in English (particularly in linguists) still carry this meaning of "relating to a people or nation."
[3]
The development of the word to principally mean "non-Jew" in English is entwined with the history of
Bible translations from Hebrew and Greek into Latin and English. Its meaning has also been shaped by
Rabbinical Jewish thought and
Christian theology[5] which, from the 1st century, have often set a binary distinction between "Jew" and "non-Jew."
I believe that the second paragraph above was the intended meaning of those who translated the scripture and used
Gentiles in place of the Greek Ethnos. Rather then identifying those in the nations coming to faith as
strangers unrelated to those called Jews, they were in fact RECOGNIZING THEM as the
Lost sheep of the H
ouse of Israel.
Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another
Romans 9:23And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
25As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
26And it shall come to pass,
that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye
are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
Verse 25 and 26 there are quoting Hosea.
Paul said there that these Gentiles were fulfilling prophesies to and about Israel.
But this is no surprise. Jacob/Israel prophesied that Ephraim's seed would become a multitude of Goy. The word goy can not nean non-Israelite as an exclusive meaning. Context matters! The equivalent of Goy in Greek was Ethnos, and
both of those words were translated Gentiles in some places.
You cannot go from Goy, which was used in the most positive sense possible speaking of Righteous Israel, translate that to Ethnos, translate that to Gentiles....and now just say it means Pagans.
That is how the meaning gets lost in translation.
Now a word that originally recognized the Gentiles
as Israeltes, is believed by most Christians to mean the opposite.
Ironic eh?